Editorial: Pentecost in San Antonio

For a few days this month, Texas Baptists experienced something like a modern-day Pentecost.

You remember what happened at Pentecost: About a week after Jesus ascended to heaven, his followers gathered in a house in Jerusalem, where “all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them” (Acts 2:4).

IEditor Marv Knoxn mid-July, more than 4,000 Texas Baptists converged on the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in downtown San Antonio, about three blocks from the Alamo. Once again, the Holy Spirit showed up, and Texas Baptists spoke in “other tongues.”

No it wasn’t that kind of meeting. Texas Baptists aren’t about to embrace glossolalia (“speaking in tongues”) that drummed up controversy and divided congregations a few decades ago.

But the Texas Baptist Family Gathering represented a first-of-a-kind annual meeting. It created quite a confluence of cultures and languages—a microcosm of the diversity that increasingly shapes the tone and texture of our state.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas moved its annual meeting from the fall to midsummer to convene in concert with three of its affinity groups that usually meet this time of year—the African-American Fellowship of Texas, Bivocational/Small Church Association and Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas. Other Texas Baptist affinity groups joined in—the Chinese Baptist Fellowship of Texas, Lao Baptist Fellowship of Texas, Texas Fellowship of Cowboy Churches and Vietnamese Baptist Fellowship of Texas.

A klatch of cultures

The result was a cacophony of languages and a klatch of cultures, all centered on our shared faith in Jesus Christ and common commission to spread the gospel and meet needs in his name.

Over and over, people in the meeting hall, concourses and exhibit area said something along these lines: “This just feels different.” Almost without exception, they said it with a grin on their faces. They couldn’t help but smile as they looked around the rooms and saw faces the colors of Texas, as they cocked their ears and heard voices that sound like the music of Texas.

This year, total registration reached 4,008, making this the largest such meeting in 13 years. Without a doubt, the San Antonio assembly produced the most diverse gathering of Texas Baptists. Ever.

With thanksgiving, I remember hearing prayers and songs expressed in at least 10 languages. With joy, I relish the recollection of conversations—some fluent, others halting—with Texas Baptists from a myriad of homelands and backgrounds.

We’re more than we seem

Our Family Gathering reminded Texas Baptists of something we easily overlook when we’re back home in the congregations where we worship and minister week-in and week-out: Together, we’re much larger, more creative and far more capable than we are in isolation.

Sometimes, the sheer expanse and diversity of Texas feels overwhelming. When we think about 30 million Texans scattered from Texarkana to El Paso and Brownsville to Booker, we wonder how we can get our arms around them all. When we consider Texans speak in enough languages to make the United Nations translation corps squeamish, we have a hard time imagining how we ever can proclaim proficiently.

But when we’re together in all our diversity, we can plainly see God already has begun this big work in us. The Lord has assembled a multitude of Texas missionaries—engineers, students, teachers, businesspeople, homemakers, doctors, laborers and, of course, even some pastors—who already have made headway toward that task.

Choices remain

The glory of the San Antonio experience doesn’t eliminate firm facts and challenging choices. We still don’t raise enough money to fund all the ministries Texas—not to mention the rest of the world—needs. We must prioritize those needs, take them on in order of those priorities, and stay after the primary tasks until they’re completed. We must determine how we can be a convention that viably serves the needs—both to give and to receive—of churches large and small, rich and poor. This demands levels of vision, discipline, consensus and sacrifice we have not achieved. It also reminds us the possibilities are phenomenal, even as the consequences of failure are catastrophic.

Many Texas Baptists left the Family Gathering thinking we should do this—meet in the summer, together across racial and ethnic lines—more often than once every five years, as our current schedule suggests. That feels like an excellent idea. Before we make a firm decision, we must consider the assessment of the affinity groups, particularly the African-Americans, Hispanics and bivocational/smaller churches, which sacrificed much of their meeting time to make this all possible.

Whatever the outcome of future gatherings, we need to remember the spirit of San Antonio. We are greater together than we can imagine alone. Our diversity is our greatest physical strength. And in God’s power, we can stride toward sharing the gospel with all of Texas.